


The Double Life

by Dustbunnygirl



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-02
Updated: 2007-08-02
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8007652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbunnygirl/pseuds/Dustbunnygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title: The Double Life<br/>Fandom: Batman (and, also, Catwoman, since it's sort of an off-shoot of that)<br/>Universe: UL-verse (or, Catwoman as she exists in the Urban Legends RPG)<br/>Spoilers: None.<br/>Rated: PG, if that. Language is fairly clean, no one's naked, no one's being hacked to bits.<br/>Word Count: 892<br/>Beta’d by: well, legal_padawan read it first, if that counts<br/>Main Characters: Selina Kyle, Maggie Lane (OC, errr, sort of)<br/>Honourable Mentions: Bruce/Batman might be briefly alluded to.<br/>Disclaimer: DC Comics owns Batman, Catwoman, Selina Kyle, and most everything about Maggie Lane except her name. The name's all mine.<br/>Credit: The lyrics bookending the narrative are from "The Double Life" by Siouxsie and the Banshees<br/>Summary: “That’s because when he looks at you,” she says, and I see her lips lift in the dim light, “all he sees is me.”</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Double Life

**Author's Note:**

> Title: The Double Life  
> Fandom: Batman (and, also, Catwoman, since it's sort of an off-shoot of that)  
> Universe: UL-verse (or, Catwoman as she exists in the Urban Legends RPG)  
> Spoilers: None.  
> Rated: PG, if that. Language is fairly clean, no one's naked, no one's being hacked to bits.  
> Word Count: 892  
> Beta’d by: well, legal_padawan read it first, if that counts  
> Main Characters: Selina Kyle, Maggie Lane (OC, errr, sort of)  
> Honourable Mentions: Bruce/Batman might be briefly alluded to.  
> Disclaimer: DC Comics owns Batman, Catwoman, Selina Kyle, and most everything about Maggie Lane except her name. The name's all mine.  
> Credit: The lyrics bookending the narrative are from "The Double Life" by Siouxsie and the Banshees  
> Summary: “That’s because when he looks at you,” she says, and I see her lips lift in the dim light, “all he sees is me.”

_I stand before myself  
Not Jekyll nor Hyde  
Not sibling nor twin separated at birth  
I stand before myself  
Unaccountable_

 

I was kinder to her than Rapunzel’s jailer ever was. I didn’t lock her away in an ivory tower with a view of a sweet garden and a world she’d never touch. Her cell is dark and windowless and doesn’t offer any glimpse of the world outside. Light cuts across the bare wooden floor as the door opens, a wedge of pale yellow that has to fight against the oppressive black. It’s the first light she’s seen in over a year. 

The air here is still and hot and heavy. The dust has long since settled; it clings to everything like snow. When I open the door little clouds of it kick up in the faint rush of air. Weightless specks rise and sink in the shaft of light. I walk through a dry blizzard as I cross the room. Flakes fall against my skin, unmelting, and become trapped in the sweat slicking my brow and threatening to drip down my nose.

She hides in the corner on the other side of the room. She doesn’t make a sound, not in protest or fear, but I know she’s there. Hidden behind stacked boxes marked with her name and discarded furniture, cowering where the shadows are deeper and thicker, she thinks she’s safe. But safety is only a temporary illusion. Her battlements are made of cardboard and memory and neither are solid enough to protect her for long.

My footsteps are silent across the old floor and vivid voids in the settled dust. In each footprint there is a glimpse of the hardwood’s former glory, before it was left to darkness and neglect. The further I walk, the more the shadows engulf me. I leave the safety of the pale light behind and plunge into the gray. There is nothing for me to fear here; it’s her prison, not mine. Her solitude, her sanctuary, her penance.

Not mine.

She left her armor thrown over an armchair pushed against the wall. I slide my hand against the slick leather and leave a shining black trail behind in the thin layer of dust that’s settled upon it. My fingers skim the whip beside it and itch to lift it, shake the dust free, and split the air with the crack of its wicked tail. I long for the weight of it in my hand, the feel of its coiled length curled in my fist, the sharp tang of sweat and leather mingling in my nostrils. I breathe in, slow and deep, and try to pull the scent from the air but everything here is musty and dry. Nothing but fossils and skeletons, hollowed out and empty and degrading in the dark.

Something moves in the corner of my vision. I turn and find her there, blocking my path. Imprisonment hasn’t left its stamp on her at all. Her dark hair finds light from somewhere, light enough to catch a shine in the smooth waves that fall over her shoulders. It’s too dark to tell the color of the eyes that bore into mine full of hate, but I remember well enough how green they were, how poisonous their stare could be. 

“Do you really think you can keep me locked away forever, Maggie?” There is no pleading to her tone. It isn’t meant as a question. It’s a challenge instead.

“I have to,” I say with a noncommittal shrug. I can’t see the rage flare in her eyes, but I can feel it. She stares daggers that twist as they try to pierce flesh.

“You’re not that good an actress, you know you’re not. Someone’s going to figure it out. Someone’s going to see right through you and then what will you do? Run again?”

“It’s not that hard a part to play.” I cross my arms over my chest and tip my chin. “He certainly doesn’t have any complaints.” She mimics the posture and shakes her head.

Laughs. Throws her head back and laughs.

“That’s because when he looks at you,” she says, and I see her lips lift in the dim light, “all he sees is me.”

“Shut up.”

“That’s all he’ll ever see.”

“Shut up, I said.”

“That’s all he wants to see.”

“Shut up!” My fist swings for her face and connects with a sharp crack. Glass shatters and cracks beneath my knuckles. Shards of it break free and tumble to the floor. I lower my fist and let it hang by my side; something warm and slick slips between my fingers, slides down my arm and pools on the wood. I watch the crimson drip in the near-dark then drag my eyes up to my prisoner’s face – my face – in the broken reflection. As I stare back at myself I imagine the cracks in the mirror run deeper than the glass. I imagine I can reach out and peel away the face in the mirror and unearth the one beneath it. The real one, locked away beneath the reflection, staring at me through a stranger’s eyes.

Through dull brown eyes that barely remember what it’s like to be green.

I turn away from her, she from me, me from myself. I follow a stranger’s footprints back to the door, leaving a trail of bloody breadcrumbs behind me. Leaving Selina Kyle locked away in the dark behind me.

_Behind this door is my other self  
Not a picture in a frame  
Nor a fresh disguise  
But my other self  
Immobile  
Inert and sanguine_


End file.
